Monday, October 27, 2008

It's been a long weekend here in NZ, and I've spent some of it actually spending time with my own, non-Wing, tree. Investigating siblings has proved interesting - it turns out that my COLES great-grandfather had three surviving older brothers who apparently married three RANDALL sisters! At least, they married three girls with the surname Randall all born in Wareham Dorset....

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

I've been downloading some more army records for the men of Wing. If you too have been looking at these records on Ancestry, note that the number of images listed for each record is invariably wrong, and the first page you see when you click into the documents themselves may not actually be the first page, so always check back through the previous couple of pages, just in case.

Just think, if I hadn't already learned that trick I would have missed those syphilis case sheets for our Wing soldier (who shall remain nameless to preserve his modesty)!

Sunday, October 12, 2008

It always pays to gather as much information as possible to avoid making incorrect assumptions. This is a bit easier in the 19th century as you generally have multiple census years to look at, but a bit harder if you are looking earlier. A researcher emailed me a while back about the marriage of William DIMMOCK and Sarah POLLARD in 1815, as he is descended from William and Sarah. This confused me for a bit, as I had thought I had identified exactly who this Sarah Pollard marrying was (one of my direct ancestors), but she was clearly too old to be giving birth in the period immediately after this marriage, yet there was a William and Sarah Dimmock baptising children then. It turns out that there was two William and Sarah Dimmocks in Wing in the 1810s to 1840s - one older couple who married in Wing, and another younger couple who most likely married a year or two earlier (they baptised two children in 1814) but not in Wing!

So it turns out Brian and I aren't related - on this branch at least, I'm sure we all know what Wing trees look like. If you are a DIMMOCK researcher and know who the mystery Sarah (not a Pollard) was, please email me as I'm sure he'd would love to find out.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

George and Alice POLLARD of Wing had two children - Mary Ann and Andrew. Mary Ann, who left Wing and married Frederick WOLLASTON, had 6 children while Andrew had 13 (of which only two died without children, I think), but there seems to be more genealogists out there descended from Mary Ann than from Andrew.

Is there anyone else out there descended from either side (bonus points if you're from Andrew's side like me though!) who wants to email me?

(PS - Jill and Robbie, if you're out there please let me know your current email addresses as the ones I have on file just bounced)

Saturday, October 04, 2008

I've had two BRANDON descendents email me in the last month. Is there anyone else out there who'd like to chime in?

Incidentally, my own Brandon claim is my 3xg-grandfather Andrew POLLARD who is a servant in Joseph Brandon's household in 1861 and no doubt learnt his blacksmith trade from him. If anyone could come up with an apprenticeship record or anything else relevant to this it would make my day!

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Last month was the 1891 census, but this month we jump back in time several hundred years. There's some new pages in the Pre-1546 section, including entries from the Records of the Chancery, Records of the Exchequer, and a Very Brief Historical Background blurb has been added.

Another new addition is the final key page of the Non-conformist section, the Catholics of Wing.